Molly Ringwald: Pretty in Pride

By: Michael Matson

5.26.2012

Actress, author, and '80s teen icon Molly Ringwald has been named grand marshal of Los Angeles' 42nd annual Gay Pride parade this June 10th. Ringwald, best known for her work in the beloved John Hughes films Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Pretty in Pink, currently stars in ABC Family's The Secret Life of an American Teenager, in which she portrays a mom who comes out late in life as a lesbian. The 44-year-old redhead is also a longtime supporter of LGBT equality.

Ringwald, who told The Advocate in 2010 that most of her friends are gay, filmed a public service announcement with her family against California's Proposition 8 prior to the anti-gay amendment's passage in November 2008. She has also included the story of a 6-year-old transgender boy in her most recent collection of short stories, When It Happens to You: A Novel in Stories, which will be released this fall.

Ringwald recently told Out she would "love it," if conservatives got up in arms over America's Sweetheart hanging with gays and playing a lesbian on a family show. "It would give me an opportunity to explain why I don't think I am ruining America's youth," she said in the magazine's June/July issue. And Ringwald was equally candid when asked about the sexual orientation of Jon Cryer's character in Pretty in Pink (left).

"Duckie doesn't know he's gay," she said. "I think he loves Andie (Ringwald's character) in the way that [my gay best friend] always loved me." Her assessment is supported by an alternate ending of the film, where Andie ends up with Duckie, which was rejected by test audiences.

"That ending feel so flat," reveals Ringwald. "It bombed at all the screening. I didn't realize it then — I just knew that my character shouldn't end up with him, because we didn't have that sort of chemistry."